Blogger - how to edit comments

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UPDATE please note that on New Blogger, rolled out fully in May 2007, you can no longer edit comments. I'm leaving this post up just for historical interest.

Editing comments posted using Blogger's own commenting system is impossible, Blogger say.

Well, no. It IS possible.The ingenious idea/insight comes from the one and only Truckspy, and this post is brought to you by the Truckspy/Improbulus Magical Sheep team...

[Edited 17 August 2005] So, to edit comments on Blogger there are three ways:

1. Edit an individual comment on a one off basis, or
2. If you use Firefox, use Browservulsel's Greasemonkey user script (for more information and instructions, please see this post), or
3. Add simple code to your blog template to produce an "Edit" link by every comment, effectively enabling one-click editing of any comment.

I'll start with the last - it's the neatest solution, and works for all browser types.

Finding out your Blog ID

Before you can do either, however, you need first to find out your blog's ID, a number unique to your blog. See this page for how. Note that down, better still copy it for easy pasting.

Adding an Edit link to your template

For this solution you need to take one more preliminary step - find out your blog's admin and PID numbers. See this post for more info on how. (If you have enabled conditional new post links, you already have the info you need and you can just copy it wholesale).

Next, you just add this code to your blog template (changing XXXXXXXXXX to your blog's admin number, YYYYYYYYYY to your PID number and ZZZZZZZZ to your blog's ID number) - you'll notice the first section is what you use for conditional new posts on Blogger:

<span class="item-control admin-XXXXXXXXXX pid-YYYYYYYYYY"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=ZZZZZZZZ&postID=<$BlogCommentNumber<span class="item-control admin-XXXXXXXXXX pid-YYYYYYYYYY"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=ZZZZZZZZ&postID=<$BlogCommentNumber$>">Edit Comment</a></span>

amp;gt;">Edit Comment</a></span>

(Of course you can change the "Edit comment" link text to just "Edit", or "Edit this sucker", or whatever you like!)

That's it. When you are logged in to Blogger and then view your blog, in each individual post (but only on the post page/item page for the post, depending on how you've got your template set up) you will see, against each comment, not only the usual Blogger "Delete" icon, but also a new link "Edit Comment".

When you click that link it calls up a page which looks just like Blogger's "Create post" form, with the existing comment text in the box where you'd usually write your post. (The comment box even has a "Title" textbox above it but neither Truckspy nor I can figure out what it's for, filling it in doesn't do anything, but (at least in Firefox) if you have the title field cursor active as if you were going to type something in the Title box, and hit enter on the keyboard, it seems to delete the entire comment - so best not to go click in or otherwise go near the Title box!).

Edit the comment to your heart's content, then click Publish Post, and voila - comment duly edited. BUT BE WARNED THAT YOU TRY THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK - IT IS REALLY, REALLY EASY TO ACCIDENTALLY DELETE A COMMENT EVEN WHEN YOU DON'T THINK YOU'VE GONE NEAR THE TITLE FIELD, so if you've clicked "Edit Comment" just to experiment and you have no intention of deleting that comment, publish it with the existing text anyway when you're done, or close that window without doing anything. So don't say I didn't warn you - I've gone and accidentally deleted one comment myself, today (sorry, Otis!).

You'll notice that if you view your blog without being logged in to Blogger, you won't see the Edit Comment link (or Delete link) - and neither will anyone else reading your blog. Which is the point of the admin and PID bits; you don't want other people to see the Edit Comment link (even though they shouldn't be able to do anything with it unless they're logged in with your proper login/password, it's just neater to hide it from those who can't use it).

One-off editing

The manual way, if you want to edit a single comment without tweaking your code, is first to make sure you're logged in to Blogger, then go to the post page with the comment you want to edit, then view source.

Find that comment in the view source. Towards the start or end of the comment, depending on how you've got it set up, there will be a long number hidden in the code, something like <a name="AAAAAAAAAA"> or <a href="#AAAAAAAAAA">. Note that number down or ideally copy it to your clipboard. It's the "Post ID" for that comment.

Next, go to this URL (where ZZZZZZZZ is your blog ID that you already found out earlier, and AAAAAAAAAA is the number you just noted down, the post ID):
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=ZZZZZZZZ&postID=AAAAAAAAAA

Or, you can just fill in the blog ID and post ID in the form below and hit the Edit Comment button:

Your Blog ID:

The post ID:

And it will call up the page I mentioned above, which looks like a Create Post page but actually enables you to edit and save the comment text.

Again try this at your own risk - you have to be really careful you don't accidentally delete the comment, as mentioned before, no comeback on Truckspy or me if you do!

[Edited 17 August 2005] Finally, for the method using a Greasemonkey script for Firefox, which just involves a few clicks to install the script, see this post.

UPDATE please note that on New Blogger, rolled out fully in May 2007, you can no longer edit comments. I'm leaving this post up just for historical interest.

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